


Falling into Memories of You and Things we Used to Do

by Calieus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drinking, Hurt, Kissing, M/M, Memories, Memory Loss, Relationship Issues, eternal sunshine au, one to many yellowcard references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:42:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22395751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calieus/pseuds/Calieus
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley were together until troubles in their relationship caused the two to separate. They then both decide to forget each-other by erasing their memories of their time together. Only to realize to late that they both still love each-other.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. The Connections that We Make

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Good Omens Big Bang event. This is an au that I've wanted to do for a long while and so I wrote it out. My amazing artist Ryoukon did two pieces for this that you can find here and in their respective chapters (1&8). Tons of thanks to both of my beta's Emm and wereflamingo for looking over this entire thing for me. Fic is title taken from the song One Year, Six Months by Yellowcard.
> 
> You can find me here on Tumblr at [fadingrequiem](https://fadingrequiem.tumblr.com) and my artist [Ryoukon](https://www.instagram.com/scila_e_kanon/) over on Instagram.

Crowley blinks awake at the sunlight filtering in through his window. He drapes his arm over his eyes, his head throbbing. Groaning in discomfort, he snuggles further into his bed. Maybe he won’t go into work today, he considers. He glances at his snake shaped digital alarm clock. The bright red numbers read 8:00am. He could get to work on time if he hurries, but his head hurts too much to think about it any further. Sighing in defeat, Crowley feels around on his bedside table for his phone and scrolls through his list of contacts until he arrives at his boss’s number. He types out a quick message that he’s sick and can’t come in, then closes his phone and sets it aside. Now that was taken care of Crowley doesn’t know what to do. He is free. Well, he could sleep some more, which sounds nice, or he could go somewhere, anywhere, he supposed. Travel to Edinburgh, Manchester, fly to India even. Newhaven. That sounds like a good idea. Newhaven.

Getting up, Crowley stretches, puts his hair in a loose ponytail, and heads out of his room. He gets to the living room and finds one of his plants on the floor. The pot is still intact, but there’s a bunch of soil everywhere. Bending down he picks up the plant, brushes the soil back in as best he can, and places it on his desk. He makes a mental note to hoover it up later. In his drunken state Crowley must have at some point knocked it over last night. He smiles down at it and heads to the shower.

* * *

Crowley locks the door to his flat behind him and walks to the elevator. Along the way he passes by his neighbor Michael, who is in the middle of a phone call. He gives her a polite wave and presses the elevator call button. The elevator dings and Crowley steps in. Some annoyingly generic elevator music plays, but he tries to ignore it. He takes out his phone to check the weather. It’s going to be -15°C in Newhaven and here he is being dumb and going anyway. However, Crowley was committed. He’d already skived off work and was determined to not waste the day. Even if that day is spent freezing his arse off on the coast. The elevator dings and Crowley put’s away his phone and steps into the lobby. He walks past the receptionist Chuck Shurley, who is busy talking to someone on the phone and doesn’t even look up at him. Crowley steps outside to a cold blast of air. Maybe this was a mistake. Walking as fast as he can to his Bentley, his hood up to the wind, Crowley arrives and discovers a dent on the driver’s door. He curses under his breath. That’ll be a little expensive to fix. Digging around his pockets Crowley feels for his keys, but he doesn’t find them. He curses again, not wanting to go back inside. Crowley decides to take the train instead.

Taking a glance at his watch, Crowley’s eyes widen. The train is going to depart soon. He makes a run for it, ignoring any stares that are shot his way. The cold air bites at his face as he runs along many sidewalks in a mad dash to reach the train station. Crowley isn’t sure as to why he must get to Newhaven at all, he just knows he needs to be there. It’s an odd feeling and one he can’t place, but maybe once he gets there, he’ll figure it out.

He reaches the train station with some time to spare. There’s a throng of people walking through the station, but Crowley spares them no glances and darts inside. He swipes his train card on the gate, checks the train times one last time, and heads off to the platform. Once there he stands with the few other people waiting. It’s warm inside the station though everyone looks cold. Hats are pulled down over ears and scarves wrapped up to cover noses. Crowley shuffles his feet around then pulls out his phone to check the time. The train should be arriving soon.

The intercom cackles to life announcing that the train to Newhaven will be arriving shortly and for all passengers to step away from the platform’s edge. Crowley steps back as the noise of the train fills the room. It arrives with some screeching and soon comes to a halt; the doors open with a swish. Crowley goes in and finds a seat that’s right by the window; he rests his head against it and pulls out his sketchbook from his bag. Inside are a bunch of drawings he’s done over the last few months, though some of them Crowley doesn’t remember doing. The train pulls out of the station as Crowley fishes a pencil out of his pocket. He starts drawing.

* * *

Crowley stands on the beach as the cold wind bites at this face. There are no other people around as no one besides him is so dumb as to go out on the beach in the freezing cold. He’s been pacing around for the past hour trying to collect his thoughts.

“This feels so pointless,” he mumbles. “There’s nothing here, and yet it all feels so familiar.”

Coming up the oceans edge Crowley avoids the rising tide and stares out into a grey sky. His life until this point has had many ups and downs. He tried marriage once, though that didn’t last long, and at one point he almost considered living out in the middle of nowhere. Now he has an alright job working to rescue snakes, but something is missing from it. Crowley sighs and waits for some sort of answer to come.

* * *

Crowley returns to his spot on the train and once again pulls out his sketchbook. His time at the beach was uneventful; all he found was the smell of salty air and his own boring thoughts.

“Hey! Hey, you,” says a close voice. “Do you have a book I can borrow? I forgot mine.”

Crowley looks up from his drawing and at the man speaking to him. He appears to be around the same age as Crowley, late 40’s, with curly short blond hair, clothes that went out of style maybe a century ago, and he had the most beautiful blue eyes.

“Um, no I don’t, sorry.”

“Aw,” the man sounds disappointed. “Well that’s alright dear, thank you.”

“What did you call me?” asks Crowley. Did he hear that right?

“Oh! I’m sorry, that just slipped out,” says the man. He cocks his head at Crowley as if intrigued. “Um, have we met before by any chance?”

“No, we haven’t, I would remember if we had.”

“Why thank you um…”

“Anthony Crowley, but please call me Crowley.”

“My names Aziraphale Fell,” says the man. “It’s nice to meet you Crowley.”

“Same to you Aziraphale. So, are you from Newhaven?”

“One second.”

Aziraphale slips back onto his seat and Crowley hears some rummaging then sees him stand up. Exiting out of his aisle, bag in hand, Aziraphale sits in the seat right beside Crowley.

“I’m heading back from a visit in Newhaven,” he says.

“A visit with family?” asks Crowley.

“You could say that, I was visiting my mum,” says Aziraphale. “So, why were you there?”

Crowley thinks for a bit. He’s not sure how to answer as he himself didn’t even know why he went there.

“For something work related,” he lies. “I work for a snake rescue center and they needed me in Newhaven to help rescue a batch of abandoned snakes.”

“I kind of assumed you liked snakes from that tattoo under your ear, but I didn’t know you liked them that much.”

“Oh yes, snakes are cute and cuddly.”

“I agree!”

“So, you like snakes too?” asks Crowley.

“Not as much as you, not enough to get a tattoo, but yes I do like them.”

“I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“I agree.”

The conversation stops as Aziraphale rummages for something in his bag again. From their chat Crowley has determined that Aziraphale is nice, and kind of cute too. He pushes that last thought away; now’s not the time for that.

“It appears that I have forgotten my car keys,” Aziraphale says. “I hope I didn’t leave them at mum’s…”

“Oh no, that’s not good. I can give you a ride home if you want,” says Crowley. “We’ll need to get my keys first, though, since I forgot them too.”

Aziraphale beams at him with a smile that is like the sun. Crowley feels his heart stop.

* * *

Crowley parks the Bentley in front of an old looking bookshop that he’s passed by many times in the past. He’s never been inside though. Aziraphale gets out of the Bentley and leans on the window, his smile bright.

“Come inside,” he says. “I want to thank you for going through all this trouble for me.”

“Oh no, I can’t do that.”

“What, why?”

“Because I, uh, have to get home and feed my pet snake,” Crowley says.

“We were just at your flat Crowley, you don’t own a snake.”

Yes, Crowley doesn’t own a snake. Yet. Chuck wouldn’t let him have one. The no pets’ rule was strictly adhered to.

“Look, you helped me out, so I want to be nice.”

“Niceness scares me.”

“I have a pet snake.”

Crowley’s eyes perk up.

“I’m coming in for the snake, and only for the snake. To see that it’s properly cared for.”

“Of course.”

Turning off the Bentley, Crowley gets out and follows Aziraphale inside the shop. Warmth hits his him and the smell of old books fills his lungs. All the shelves are aligned in tidy rows and filled to the brim with books. Past all the shelves are a white couch and a messy desk that Crowley can assume serves as Aziraphale’s office. However, most importantly there is a tank with a large black snake. Crowley takes off his coat and rushes over to the couch. He kneels to get a better view and stares at the snake. It’s curled up in the middle of the tank sleeping, but its head is resting on top of its coils and its pink tongue is sticking out. He’ll have to ask Aziraphale if he can pet it sometime.

“What kind of tea to do you like?” Aziraphale calls from somewhere in the shop. “I have a choice between green, peach, mango, apple, and many other exotic teas.”

“Um peach is fine, thank you!” He calls back. “What’s the snakes name!?”

“Got it! And his name is Crawly.”

That’s both a clever pun and something that kind of scares Crowley. The name was so familiar, and not just because of the resemblance to his own. He turns away from Crawly and sinks onto the plush couch. Crowley digs out his phone and opens Twitter to help pass the time. He’s reading a Tweet about some new meme everyone’s obsessing over when Aziraphale comes out with the tea and sets it down on the desk.

Tossing his phone to the side Crowley takes the tea with care and watches the steam coming off it. He raises the cup and takes a sip; the sweet hot beverage instantly warms his entire body, making Crowley sigh in content.

“So, this is my bookshop,” says Aziraphale. “I love collecting rare books, so many of these aren’t for sale, but I do have a small section that is available for purchase.”

“You own a bookshop and you don’t sell things? How can you afford to keep this place open?”

“I have my ways dear, trust me.”

Crowley shakes his head and goes back to take another drink of his tea. He looks around a little more at the shop and sees more old oddities, gramophone, statues of some sort, and an elaborately decorated floor. It gives off a feeling of home which makes sense since it appears that Aziraphale lives here. But it also feels familiar. Crowley glances over at Aziraphale. He has spectacles on and is hovering over a damaged book with tools Crowley can’t identify. The spectacles make him look even cuter than he already is. Crowley almost spits out his tea at that thought; where is this all coming from? He turns away from Aziraphale and tries to make some conversation.

“What book is that?”

“Oh, it’s a copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ , quite old.”

“I expected no less than that,” says Crowley. “Do you repair them?”

“Yes, I do! If you pull up a chair, I’ll show you!”

Crowley takes another drink of his tea then gets up. He walks over to Azirphale’s desk and puts the cup down before pulling up a nearby chair. Aziraphale gets one of his instruments out and starts explaining the function of it.

“Now you see this one is for carefully turning the pages. Watch.”

The device is placed on the page and it turns with ease. Crowley doesn’t understand why you would need one of those, but he’s nonetheless intrigued.

“Fascinating.”

“This next one is for identifying the different marks on the page.”

Crowley scoots his chair a little closer and squints at the page. He can’t tell what Aziraphale is doing, but the soft sound of his voice is calming. So calming that he stops paying attention and only focuses on the sound of it, nodding along every so often. Soon they somehow end up drifting close enough that they touch thighs, and it’s comforting in a way, familiar, almost as though they’ve done this before.

“Crowley, let’s go to the park.”

“Hm?” Crowley says as his brain gets pulled back to reality.

“I am in need of some fresh air, so the park sounds good for that.”

“It’s freezing out there! Are you mad?”

“Yes.”

Crowley stares at Aziraphale in disbelief.

“Alright, we can go,” he says. “But if we freeze to death then it’s your fault.”

“We’ll be fine dear.”

* * *

There’s no one at the park when they get there, because why would anyone be outside in the freezing cold in the middle of the night. Aziraphale has grabbed Crowley’s hand and dragged him down the park’s snow-covered path. He shivers a little from the cold as Aziraphale continues to drag him along. They soon arrive at the pond, which has frozen over.

“Let’s get on it.”

“I’m sorry, what?” asks Crowley

“You heard me.”

“It’s dangerous!” shouted Crowley.

“I can assure you it’s fine dear, I’ve done it lots of times.”

“With who?”

“Friends, now come on.”

Aziraphale tugs on Crowley’s hand and drags him over to the fence that surrounds the pond. He climbs over it and Crowley has little choice but to follow along. As soon as Crowley’s feet hit the ice he almost slips, but Aziraphale catches him. He turns away embarrassed as soft laughter fills his ears.

“We can lay down if you’d like.”

“That doesn’t sound safe either, but it’s better than me slipping and falling on my arse.”

With some ease, Crowley sits down and then lays down on the ice. The cold bites into his back, but he’ll get used to it. Aziraphale follows him and soon they’re both laying down and staring at the stars. A hand grabs a hold of Crowley’s and he snaps his head to look at Aziraphale, who’s staring at the night sky.

“Do you know any constellations Crowley?”

“I do, why?” asks Crowley.

“Can you tell me some of them?”

“Shouldn’t you be the one telling me?” says Crowley. “You’re always buried in books.”

“I could but hearing it from you is more special.”

Crowley’s heart skips a beat and his face flushes. They’ve only known each other for a few hours and yet Aziraphale is saying things like they’re a couple. He turns to stare at the stars and hopes that Aziraphale can’t see his face.

“Let’s see…there’s Draco, Cancer, and um…Ursa Major?”

“That’s not all of them that are out right now, but a good effort.”

“Then why don’t you name them?”

“I don’t want to.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.

“Alright, do whatever you want, then.”

The hand in Crowley’s squeezes his and for a bit there he almost forgot that they just met. He turns his head to look at Aziraphale and is met with brilliant blue eyes staring back at him.

“You know something Crowley?” Airaphale asks.

“…What?”

“You’re nice.”

“I am not nice, you’ve got that all wrong.”

“Do I?” asks Aziraphale. “You seem nice and downright delightful too.”

Crowley feels the heat rise to his face. It’s been a long time since anyone’s said that to him.

“…I mean…I guess I can be?”

Seeming pleased by his answer Aziraphale laughs and beams at him once more with his warm smile.

“This was fun, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “We should do this again sometime.”

Crowley smiles.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

* * *

“Why are all these CDs of Queen?” asks Aziraphale as he flips through Crowley’s CD collection while they drive back from lunch.

“I happen to like them, you have a problem?”

“No, but it’s weird that they’re all just The Best of Queen.”

“I have one non-Queen CD, it’s of a group called Yellowcard,” Crowley says. “It was given to me from my friend Dagon for the same complaint of only having Queen CDs”.

“I’ll need to get you another one too, because this is just ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Out of the corner of his eye Crowley sees Aziraphale put the CDs down and throw up his hands. Aziraphale doesn’t make a retort and opts for looking out the window instead. Not that it matters to Crowley since he needs to focus on the road. They soon they arrive at Aziraphale’s book shop.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Crowley asks.

“Hm, we could, or I could just stay at your place.”

“Huh?”

“Can I?” asks Aziraphale.

“We’ve only known each other for like three days, isn’t it weird to ask to stay at someone’s place after barely meeting them?”

“I do it all the time, it’ll be fine.”

Crowley sits there stunned as Aziraphale laughs. He gets out of the Bentley and leans back in through the window.

“I need to grab some things,” Aziraphale says. “It won’t take long.”

Leaving Crowley, Aziraphale disappears into his bookshop. Crowley sighs and wonders how he got himself into this. He leans back in his seat and relaxes while he waits for Aziraphale to get back. Crowley becomes a little too relaxed though and he doesn’t notice someone approach the Bentley.

“What are you doing here?”

Nearly jumping out of his seat Crowley turns to see the owner of the voice. He has short black hair, brown eyes, a tall frame, and handsome features. The guy’s the picture-perfect dream man.

“I’m just dropping off a friend. Who are you?”

The guy doesn’t answer and wanders off down the street.

“Strange,” Crowley says aloud to himself. “Wonder who he was.”


	2. The Hurt is Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the Yellowcard song of the same name.

Rain pounds against the Bentley as Crowley drives through the night with tears streaking down his face. He shouldn’t be driving in this weather, but he’s too sad to even care about that. All he wants to do is go home and forget today. The sound of Yellowcard’s The Hurt is Gone blares from the speakers to distract himself from all the emotions threating to bubble over. Crowley grips his steering wheel as more sobs wrack his body. The Bentley comes to a halt at the stoplight with a screech. Crowley attempts to wipe the tears away, but they just keep falling. He sees the Valentine’s Day gift he got sitting on the dashboard a small red box that holds a ring. It was supposed to be for Aziraphale.

Crowley almost wants to grab the gift and toss it out into the rain, but he knows that won’t fix how he feels. The light turns green and Crowley peels off into the rainy night. The stereo starts playing the next song. 

* * *

Crowley walks into the far too brightly lit lobby of his flats building and is about to pass Chuck when he speaks to him for once. 

“Hey Crowley,” Chuck greets. “There were some people in a van looking for you. Not sure what trouble you got into, but I’m just letting you know.”

“Alright, thanks for telling me.”

_So, they did come after all._

“No problem.”

Crowley pushes the elevator call button and it opens right away, he steps in and presses the button for his floor. The annoying music makes him want to punch the wall. He’s out of the elevator the instant the ding sounds. He’s walking down the hall as fast as he possibly can. Crowley reaches his flat and fishes for his keys, he fumbles with them as the door to Michael’s flat opens.

“Hello, Anthony,” Michael greets.

“Hi Michael.”

“How are you doing?” she asks. “I haven’t seen Aziraphale around lately, did something happen?”

“…No.”

“Anthony, you’re lying, aren’t you?”

“You sensing that scares me.”

“It’s a gift,” says Michael. “Did something happen between you and Aizraphale?”

“We got into a fight a while back,” explains Crowley.

“Aw, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” says Crowley. “We’re both being idiots, so we’ll eventually calm ourselves down.”

“Well I hope things work out,” says Michael. “Aziraphale is a lucky man to have someone like you.”

Crowley feels a stab of pain at the comment.

“Yeah, he is,” he says. “I’ll see you later Michael.”

Opening the door, Crowley steps into his flat and locks the door. He flicks on a light and heads over to the kitchen. On the way he kicks off his shoes and doesn’t bother to see where they land. He stumbles to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of wine and takes a long drink right from the bottle. Crowley leaves his kitchen and heads to his room; his plants look concerned though that might just be the alcohol talking. He sits down on his bed and places the bottle on the night stand. Sighing Crowley places his hands on his face and rubs his head.

“I’m such an idiot…” he says. “A big old idiot for ruining another thing that was good in my life.”

Crowley feels himself wanting to cry again, tears threatening to spill over once more. He swallows deeply and decides it’s probably for the best that he just goes to sleep instead.

“It’ll all be over soon though,” he says.

Getting up Crowley walks to his dresser and opens the top drawer. He pulls out a bottle of sleeping pills and opens it. One white pill shakes out and onto his hand. Crowley goes back to his bed and takes the pill with another swing of wine. He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling and closes his eyes, waiting for the pill to take effect.

* * *

“Okay, so Beelzebub he did remember we were coming right?” asks the voice of a man.

“We told the receptionist to let him know we were,” says Beelzebub. “Though it doesn’t matter, Hastur. It’s not like he’ll remember any of it anyway.”

“True,” says Hastur. “But him being asleep means more work for us on getting this equipment on him.”

“Always complaining.”

“Shut up.”

* * *

_“We got into a fight a while back,” explains Crowley._

_“Aw, I’m so sorry.”_

_“It’s fine,” says Crowley. “We’re both being idiots, so we’ll eventually calm ourselves down.”_

_“Well I hope things work out,” says Michael. “Aziraphale is a lucky man to have someone like you.”_

Crowley moves his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Everything around him is frozen and his vision is going dark. He tries to speak again, but Michael vanishes into dust. Then his entire building follows along in suit, leaving him alone in pitch darkness. He passes out.

* * *

Crowley sits on the steps of his friends Dagon’s house, absentmindedly playing with his hair as he rants about his relationship troubles.

“Me and Aziraphale haven’t been doing well,” he says. “We’ve gotten into a few arguments that always end with us being mad at each other for three days.”

“Alright, so instead of actually talking about it like responsible adults,” says Dagon. “You both just stay mad for three days and then go right back to fucking when you end up missing each other.”

“We’re not sex craving fiends, Dagon.”

“But you’re both idiots.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“Look, just go talk to each other like adults,” says Dagon. “It’s not hard to do.”

“But it is,” whines Crowley. “Why can’t love be simple and not a complicated mess of emotions?”

“I do not have an answer to that.”

Crowley sighs and wraps his arms around his legs. This whole love thing is dumb.

“What do I do Dagon?”

“That’s a question you should figure out yourself,” they say. “Have you thought of anything?”

“I was going to get an early Valentine’s Day gift for him.”

“Why didn’t you say that sooner!?”

“Because I’m too sad to think straight.”

“You’re hopeless,” says Dagon. “Look, get him the gift and then apologize.”

Crowley rests his chin on his knees and sighs.

“Alright.”

* * *

It feels odd to be sitting outside of Aziraphale’s book-shop again after not speaking to each other for three weeks. A lot longer than usual, but sometimes they need their space. Crowley stares at the little black box on his dashboard, a ring that Aziraphale had his eyes on every time they passed by the jewelry shop. He grabs the box and makes a move to get out of the Bentley when the door to Aziraphale’s shop opens. Out steps a tall handsome man that Crowley has never seen before. Aziraphale follows out after the guy and says something that makes the guy laugh. Crowley sits there to stunned to move. Had this been going on for a while?

“Do be careful please Lucifer,” says Aziraphale, so that’s the bloke’s name.

“I’ll be alright,” Lucifer says. Even his voice is sexy, this isn’t fair. “The detective will protect me if anything goes wrong.

“I still worry though, dear.”

That’s all the confirmation Crowley needs to drive off. He feels a bunch of emotions all at once and the tears come before he knows it. Then everything stops again before vanishing into dust.

* * *

Crowley sits curled up on Dagon’s couch with a big wool blanket wrapped around him and his hair put up in a bun. He had meant to go home but he ended up here instead due to the rain and his emotions getting the better of him. Dagon sits on the spot next to him with a cup of tea in their hands.

“I’m going to guess that the gift giving didn’t go well?” they ask.

“I didn’t even get to give it to him,” says Crowley. “He was with another guy when I got there so I left.”

“That really sucks. Can’t believe he found someone else already.”

“…Yeah…”

“Well, you can stay here and mope all night,” Dagon says. “I have ice cream and Netflix.”

Crowley smiles.

“Thank you.”

“It’s no big deal,” Dagon says. “Here you get yourself comfy while I grab the ice cream.”

Crowley picks up the TV remote and turns on Netflix. He scrolls through several different shows and movies before settling on _The Social Network_. Crowley sets the remote down as the opening scene of the movie plays, a conversation between the main character and his girlfriend. They’re arguing about their relationship and it vaguely reminds Crowley of him and Aziraphale’s. The girl in the movie says the guy is an asshole and Crowley feel’s a stab of pain. That hit a little too close for comfort. Maybe he should pick a different movie.

“I come bearing chocolate ice-cream,” says Dagon as they shove a full bowl in Crowley’s face.

Taking the bowl, Crowley takes a bite and lets his sorrows be melted away with the ice-cream.

* * *

Crowley wakes up on Dagon’s couch in an uncomfortable position, one foot is on the floor and his head is facing the couch while his body lays flat. He groans and gets himself a bit more situated before sitting up on the couch. At some point in the night his hair came undone.

“Ugh what time is it,” he groans.

“Noon,” says Dagon from behind him. “You deserved a long rest.”

“Hm, thanks.”

A piece of paper is shoved into his face and Crowley blinks at it.

“This arrived for you today.”

“To only the friend(s) of Anthony J. Crowley,” Crowley reads. “Do not open around him.”

“I didn’t open it, so we get to see what it is together.”

“It says specifically for me to not see it though.”

“Do I look like I care?”

Taking the letter Crowley adjusts himself onto the couch and Dagon takes a seat next him. He spares a glance at them for affirmation that this is a good idea, Dagon nods. Crowley opens the letter and pulls out a single piece of paper that reads;

_On January 29 th one Aziraphale Fell erased his memories of one Anthony J. Crowley at Heaven. He is to not ever go near Aziraphale again for Crowley could cause damages to Aziraphale’s memories. _

Crowley blinks at the letter in disbelief. It sounds like science fiction.

“This sounds fake,” he says.

“It sounds super fake, yes.”

Turning the letter over Crowley inspects it for anything else, there’s nothing.

“That would explain why I haven’t seen Aziraphale in like a week,” he says. “But memory erasure just sounds like total bullshit.”

“I could tell you to go ask Aziraphale, but if what the letter says is true then you should not do that.”

“Then I’ll have to go find this Heaven place,” says Crowley. “And that name is weird why anyone would name a place of business that.”

“Maybe because memory erasure is like heaven for some people.”

“Yeah, and enough to not tell anyone about it.”

“Aziraphale probably had his reasons Crowley,” says Dagon. “Reasons that he didn’t tell you because you might do something stupid.”

“I don’t do stupid things.”

Dagon raises an eyebrow.

“Need I remind you of the incident involving setting a bunch of snakes free?”

“…Okay maybe I do a few stupid things,” says Crowley. “But the point is Aziraphale got his memories erased and didn’t tell me before we even discussed breaking it off. It’s…upsetting that he no longer trusted me enough to tell me.”

A hand places itself on Crowley’s shoulder. He looks up at Dagon’s resentful face.

“This world is scary Crowley, but the connections that we make assure us that things aren’t as scary as they seem.”

“Stop getting all philosophical on me.”

“Hey, look I don’t get to use it often,” Dagon says. “So, I’m taking the opportunity.”

“Big nerd.”

“You’re a nerd.”

Crowley laughs.

“Thanks Dagon, I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” they say. “So, what are you going to do now?”

Pursing his mouth Crowley thinks on the question. He could drown a bit more in sorrow’s, get more sleep, go buy a snake to terrorize Chuck, or find Heaven and ask them about this memory erasure thing.

“I think I’ll go find Heaven.”

* * *

Crowley stands in front of a normal enough looking building. It’s two stories situated between two shops and has a giant purple neon sign on the front that says “WELCOME TO HEAVEN” in bold. The building is also bright white, okay so maybe the building isn’t that normal looking, but it’s in a business area.

“This is not how I pictured heaven to look,” he comments. “I expected me in a giant mansion with snakes. Not what looks like a place for clandestine activities.”

Checking the addresses on his phone one last time Crowley sucks in a breath and opens the bright purple door. Inside is not as over the top looking as the outside. There are purple vinyl chairs lining both sides of beige colored walls, a receptionist in the middle, and a door to the left. A few people are sitting in the chairs looking sad and miserable. He closes the door and walks up to the receptionist. They’re shuffling through some paperwork when he walks up, but they notice him and look up. The receptionist is short, has about shoulder length black hair, and is wearing a white coat with a black suit. On the coat is a generic name tag that reads; “Hello, my name is Beelzebub and my pronouns are Zir/Ze.

“Oh, so you’re Beelzebub,” he says.

“The one and only,” zir says. “How can I help you?”

“I scheduled an appointment at two.”

Beelzebub types something on zir computer.

“Anthony J. Crowley?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, Dr. Gabriel will be with you here shortly, please have a seat.”

“Thank you.”

Crowley leaves and sits down on one of the chairs away from the rest of the miserable people. He takes a quick glance at some of the other people, they all have filled trash bags with them. Filled with what though? Crowley can only hope that it’s not terrible things. He takes out his phone and opens Twitter to pass some time. Crowley only gets to read one tweet before the door to the offices open.

“Anthony?” calls the nurse.

“Yes!”

“Dr. Gabriel will see you now.”

Getting up Crowley walks to the door while avoiding the stares of some angry patrons. He enters the door and the nurse shuts it.

“Right this way,” she says.

They walk down a hall that is decorated with different little lights on the wall’s edge. Crowley raises an eyebrow, he’s going to assume that this Gabriel person likes bright things. He also notices that every single door is open. All Crowley can make out in the rooms are devices that look like hair dryers from a salon. They continue and soon pass a room with a device in use. It’s a crying woman looking at a screen as a man in a lab coat holding a doll monitors her. Crowley feels a sense of unease settling through him. Is that the memory erasing process?

“We’re here.”

Crowley focuses back to reality, they’ve arrived at a purple door with a gold plate attached that reads; Dr. Gabriel Mathews’. The nurse makes to knock on the door, but it opens immediately with a bit too aggressively and Crowley jump. Standing there is Gabriel with short black hair and purple eyes, he’s wearing a white suit, and he has a bit of a sly smile on his face.

“Why hello Crowley,” he greets in his American accent. “It’s so nice to see you.”

“Um…yeah you too.”

“Please come in.”

Gabriel steps out of the way and Crowley enters the office. Inside is a standing desk with a laptop. The door shuts behind him and Gabriel sprints over to behind his desk. Crowley give him a weird look and goes to sit in the chair across from the desk, feeling rather short. Clasping his hands on his desk Gabriel looks at Crowley with a stern expression.

“So, I take it you’re here to talk about Aziraphale?” he asks.

“How did you know?”

“Why else would you be here? You want answers.”

“I do.”

“So, what do you want to know then?”

“Is the memory erasing real?” Crowley asks. “And why did he do it without telling me?”

“Yes, to the first question,” says Gabriel. “And for the second, he had his reasons that I am not allowed to disclose.”

Crowley blinks at him, so he’s back at square one then.

“Alright, then why am I supposed to stay away?”

“The memory erasure still has some flaws,” Gabriel explains. “It can still trigger the erased memories if a person is shown objects of sentimental value. So, we ask that anyone close to the person stays away.”

“Then how come I wasn’t supposed to find out?”

“Because some people do stupid things when they do.”

Crowley looks down.

“…I see.”

“Look, whatever happened between you two sucks, but I can’t disclose the case beyond the basics of what we do,” Gabriel explains. “Everyone has their reasons for doing this. All I can offer you is the same treatment Aziraphale had.”

Taken aback by the offer Crowley jumps a little in his seat and stares at Gabriel. Crowley was conflicted. On the one hand, he could take the offer. Aziraphale has already forgotten Crowley. Though at the same time he would lose all those nice memories of their time together. But just knowing that, Aziraphale has already forgotten those…

“Alright,” Crowley says without thinking. “I’ll do it.”

“Wonderful! So, first I need you to go home and gather everything that was Aziraphale’s.”

“Why?”

“We use objects of sentimental value to create a memory map in order to get a timeline of the memories to erase.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Yes, it is,” says Gabriel. “So, I need you to do that and fill out some paperwork that Beelzebub will get for you.”

“Um, okay.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow Crowley.”

* * *

Crowley picks up one of the plants that Aziraphale gave to him as a gift on his birthday, a snake plant. His smile is sad, and he places the plant on his desk since it can’t go into a bag. He gathers up any pictures and throws those into the trash bag too then a book that was given to him. Soon Crowley’s gathered up everything that was once his and Aziraphale’s into trash bags. He sits on his bed and considers what he’s really doing. This might be something he’ll later regret, but once his memory is gone, he won’t know the difference. Crowley sighs and sits on his throne; the one that Aziraphale had always said was ridiculous.

“I hope that this isn’t all for nothing.

He remembers the moment Aziraphale gave him the snake plant.

_“I would have gotten you a pet snake, but Chuck says pets are not allowed.”_

_“Yeah, I had tried to bribe him once with free nacho coupons, but it didn’t work.”_

_“You tried to bribe him with nacho’s?” asks Aziraphale. “You’re supposed to use money!”_

_“He values nacho’s more than money,” Crowley says as he inspects the plant. “It’s fine though, you have a pet snake I can always visit.”_

_“True,” Aziraphale says. “And Crowley?”_

_“Hm?”_

_“I love you.”_

The memory fades as tears roll down Crowley’s face.


	3. Lost in Our Memories

Crowley sits on one of the uncomfortable purple plastic chairs fidgeting in place while he browse’s Twitter. Why Gabriel decided that these plastic chairs were a good idea he’ll never know. He re-tweets a meme and scrolls back up his timeline, nothing to interesting so far. There’s only one other person in the room with him, a woman with four whole bags of stuff compared to Crowley’s two. The woman looks even more miserable than Crowley, she has bags under her eyes, and she’s dressed sloppyily. He almost feels bad for her.

“Anthony, Dr. Gabriel is ready to see you.”

Crowley turns off his phone and slips it into his skintight jean’s pocket before grabbing his stuff and following the nurse down the hall and to Gabriel’s office. The door is already open, and Gabriel is inside.

“Please sit-down Crowley,” he says. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Putting the bags down Crowley takes his seat and clasps his hands together in his lap and watches Gabriel shuffle around a big pile of paperwork.

“That’s a lot paperwork,” Crowley says trying to make conversation.

“I know,” says Gabriel. “I got way too behind because I didn’t want to do it.”

“Don’t you have an assistant for that?”

“Beelzebub does help me with it, but there are some things that I have to do myself,” explains Gabriel as he stacks some papers on the corner of his desk.

“Right.”

“Anyways, I can take care of this later,” says Gabriel. “Our meeting is of more importance than boring paperwork.”

Gabriel stands behind his desk and places his hands on the table. His demeaner appears relaxed.

“So, where do we begin?” asks Crowley.

“Well, we’ll start with how you two first met,” says Gabriel. “That’ll be our end point for the map, then we’ll use the objects to help fill in the rest.”

“Shouldn’t you know that already?”

“Again, I can’t say anything, so you have to tell me.”

“Alright, so we first met at a beach birthday party in Newhaven.”

“Whose birthday was it?”

“It was for a friend’s son, his name is Adam and he had just turned 11,” explains Crowley. “The party was a little boring, so I stepped away for a while and went to another part of the beach.”

“Go on…”

“I stood there for a while and Aziraphale just appeared out of nowhere. We chatted for a while and decided to ditch the party for something better.”

“I hope no one noticed your absence.”

“They did, and I got into trouble.”

“That’s expected,” says Gabriel. “Did anything else happen while you two were off exploring?”

“We may have broken into a house…”

“And why did you think that was a good idea?”

“It was not my idea,” says Crowley. “Aziraphale insisted that we do it, said that it would be more fun than walking on the beach.”

“Did anything else happen?”

“No, we just talked and had a good time.”

Gabriel notes something down on some paper.

“Okay, so we have our end point,” he says. “I’m going to call in Hastur and he’ll help with making the rest of the map.”

Crowley fidgets in his chair.

* * *

By the time Crowley finishes the last of his story his throat is dry. Hastur writes down one last thing, puts away a picture he was holding, and looks back at him.

“That was long I know, but we have our map now.”

“Thank you,” says Crowley. “So, what comes next?”

“Well, we need to process everything to get it ready. Should only take a few hours.”

“Right…”

The door to the room opens and Gabriel pokes his head in.

“I take it you guys are done?”

“Yes,” says Hastur. “We can begin as soon as the data is processed.”

“Wonderful,” Gabriel says as he steps into the room.

“I’ll go ahead and do that,” Hastur says. “Take care Crowley.”

“Thank you.”

Hastur steps out of the room leaving only Crowley and Gabriel.

“Once the data is processed, we’ll let you know,” says Gabriel. “Until then I want you to go home and think about today.”

Crowley tilts his head in confusion.

“Why is that?”

“This is a difficult process and having some time to think on it is needed for some,” explains Gabriel. “Some don’t need it, but regardless a day to reflect on it is recommended. And we’ll hold onto your stuff for you.”

“Right. I’ll think on it then thank you.”

Gabriel gives him a smile.

“We’ll look forward to seeing you again when your decision is made.”

* * *

Crowley gets home and as soon as his shoes are off, he collapses on his throne. He sighs and stares at his plants, they all look so concerned for him.

“Stop looking at me like that!” he shouts. “Just focus on growing better, you dumb plants.”

If Crowley’s plants could move, he’s sure that would be quivering in fear. Aizraphale always told him that he shouldn’t yell at them then they’d grow to be pretty. The thought stops Crowley, where did that come from?

_“You need to stop yelling at the poor plants dear!”_

_Aziraphale pushes Crowley out of the way from his plants._

_“They’re plants they don’t have feelings.”_

_“They do!” shouts Aziraphale. “Don’t listen to him dearies, you are all so beautiful.”_

_Crowley rolls his eyes. They’re just plants and while he does yell at them Crowley cares for his plants a lot. Not that he would admit that to Aziraphale._

_“Zira,” he says. “Why do you care about the plants?”_

_“Because I can tell that you love them a lot.”_

_A blush creeps up on Crowley’s face._

The memory goes away, and Crowley lets a pained smile grace his lips. After that moment Crowley had stopped yelling at his plants which made Aziraphale so happy. A tear lands on Crowley’s desk.

“Dammit…” he mumbles. “This is pathetic.”

Getting up, Crowley heads to the kitchen and opens the fridge to grab a bottle of wine. He pulls the cork and takes a wig of it. Then he wanders out of the kitchen and sits back on his throne, the bottle clinks as he sets it down.

“How did things end up like this?” he asks to no one.

_“It’s because we never asked questions about love.”_

Crowley snaps his head around the room. That was Aziraphale’s voice.

“Now I’m hearing things,” he says. “I should just go sleep, I’ll think about all this in the morning.”

* * *

Once again Crowley is back in Gabriel’s office visiting for the last time. After this, he won’t remember any of it.

“I’m ready,” he says.

“Are you sure?” asks Gabriel. “There’s no going back once it’s done.”

“Yes.”

“Alright then. We can start as soon as tonight if you want.”

“I’ll agree to that,” says Crowley.

“Then we’ll see you tonight.”


	4. See Me Smiling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the Yellowcard song of the same name.

Hastur takes a swig of the bitter beer as images of Crowley’s brain flash before him on his computer. He’s sitting at a small wooden table a few inches away from Crowley’s bed with a bunch of wires extending from the computer. They all connect back to the dome shaped memory device that currently rests on Crowley’s head. The device blinks every so often to indicate that another memory has been erased. Hastur leans back in his chair and looks to his co-worker Lucifer, who is distracted by something on his phone.

“You didn’t have to come,” says Hastur. “I could have managed it alone.”

“No, you couldn’t have. I remember the last time we left you alone, you trapped a bunch of memories inside an answering machine.”

“It was an accident! I didn’t mean to do that!”

“Of course you didn’t,” says Lucifer. “Then you did it again and got the wrong memories erased.”

“Why are you bringing this up?”

“It’s so I can make sure you’re not going to fuck up again.”

“How will you know if I make mistake, if you’re going to be distracted by your phone the entire time?”

“I’ll know, trust me.”

Hastur grabs another beer and goes back to monitoring the computer.

* * *

Crowley sits on his throne with a large book in his hand. It’s currently midnight. He’s not one for late night reading like Aziraphale is, but he’s been waiting for him to get back for hours. Aziraphale went out to hang with friends and took the Bentley. That’s mostly the reason why he’s up still, if anything happens to his Bentley Crowley will not hesitate to kill anyone who dares to lay a scratch on her. Crowley flips to the next page in the book he’s reading, _The Way of Kings_. He picked it up a while back on a recommendation from Aziraphale when he told him he wanted something that had cool magic in it. The book is interesting so far in the 400 pages that he’s read in the past five hours.

His flat door clicks open and Crowley closes the book. He clasps his hands together and sits them on the table. Aziraphale walks into the room with a stumble reeking of alcohol. He looks at Crowley with a drunken smile.

“Hey, Crowley,” he slurs. “Why are you still up?”

“I was up waiting for you, and to make sure that my Bentley got home safe.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen.

“Um, yeah she got home safe and sound.” he says. “Nice and tidy just like you left her.”

Crowley can sense the lie in his voice.

“What did you do?”

With a few stumbles Aziraphale makes it to Crowley’s table and plops down the Bentley’s keys. He then walks past him and to Crowley’s kitchen.

“I may have taken her for an extravagant ride,” calls Aziraphale. “I think I hit something along the way, but I can’t remember. Hey, you do have alcohol wonderful!”

“You put a dent in my Bentley?”

“I probably did yeah,” says Aziraphale as he comes out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine.

Crowley shoots a glare at him.

“It was an accident alright? Don’t get your pants in a bunch.”

“I’m never letting you near her ever again.”

“That so?” says Aziraphale. “Is it because you want to pound her in the gas pipe and not me anymore?”

Crowley blinks at him, then blushes before facepalming. He is way too sober for this.

“No, I do not want to do that and the fact that you thought of it is disgusting.”

Aziraphale takes a drink of the wine, not taking his eyes off Crowley. 

“Then you have sex with other people while I’m not here?” he asks. “To help fill the void of your miserable existence.”

Crowley’s eyes widen in shock. How could Aziraphale assume that about him? He knows that he’s drunk and all, but him even asking that is concerning. Is that really what he thinks he does in his spare time? Crowley doesn’t think of what he says next, the answer surprises him as much as it does Aziraphale.

“Yes, I do sleep with other people while you’re not around.”

The bottle of wine in Aziraphale’s hands drops to the floor. Glass shatters everywhere and Aziraphale has tears in his eyes.

“I’m leaving!” he shouts.

Aziraphale opens the door and runs out, not even bothering to close it. Crowley stares, dumbfound. Great, he’s really done it this time.

“Goddammit.”

Not even bothering to grab his coat, Crowley runs out of his flat after Aziraphale. He doesn’t bother with the elevator and rushes to the emergency stairs. Crowley climbs down them two steps at a time and soon he’s throwing the exit door open with a loud bang. Cold air blasts into his face. He spots Aziraphale in the distance, exiting the lot. Crowley runs and shouts at him.

“Aziraphale!” he shouts. “Come on please, I didn’t mean it!”

“Yes, you did you, you, arsehole!”

“I’ve never slept with anyone else while I was with you,” Crowley says. “You’re drunk and I was mad.”

“Then why did you say yes?”

“Because I was being an idiot.”

Aziraphale turns his tear stained face to him.

“It’s a little late to apologize.”

“I know that,” says Crowley, “This is all going to get erased and here I am trying to apologize at the last minute.”

As soon as the words leave Crowley’s mouth, a blue car falls from the sky; it lands on a red car with a loud crunch. Aziraphale looks behind him just as another one falls.

“And that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks. “To forget about me.”

“You forgot about me first.”

Aziraphale turns back to look at him as more cars fall.

“Do you know why I chose to forget about you?”

“Why?” Crowley asks.

“It’s because. It’s because, you go too fast for me, Crowley,” Aziraphale says softly.

The words hit Crowley like one of the falling cars. So, that’s how Aziraphale always felt then? That everything Crowley was doing was too much and he went far too fast for him? Crowley opens his mouth to speak, but the memory vanishes into dust before he can say anything. He doesn’t fade right away into another memory; instead he hears the voices of Hastur and Lucifer talking.

“So, are you and Aziraphale dating?” Hastur asks.

“Nope.”

“Wait, what? I thought you were?”

“Dear heavens, no, of course not,” says Lucifer. “He’s an old friend.”

“But he called you dear.” Says Hastur.

“He says that to everyone who’s he close friends with.”

“Wow, I suck at detecting relationships.”

“You really do,” says Lucifer. “So, we aren’t together at all, but I do keep an eye on him.”

“Worried that he’ll remember?”

“Yeah, he can’t go through that again. Seeing him all sad pained me.”

“Hm.”

Their voices fade away and Crowley is left alone in darkness, once again. It’s a little to late to find out that Lucifer is not dating Aziraphale, but better late than, never, right? The darkness around him lights up and Crowley finds himself at the Ritz with Aziraphale for one of their lunch dates. Crowley can still hear the voices of Lucifer and Hastur, but they’re faint, distant. He focuses back on the scene. Aziraphale is sitting next to him eating an éclair with a side of crepes.

“So, dear, how was your day?” Aziraphale asks as he bites into his éclair.

“It was good,” says Crowley. “I got off early which is always nice.”

“I agree, because then we can spend more time together. You’re always so busy.”

“Those snakes aren’t going to rescue themselves, you know.”

“That’s true,” says Aziraphale. “Anyways, I have something to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“What kind of snake should we get?”

“A black Coluber constrictor,” says Crowley.

“I’m not surprised that you would say that.”

“Of course.”

“Alright, but I’m a bit worried it’ll scare people off,” says Aziraphale.

“As long as it’s not moving around the shop no one is going to freak out.”

“But I want to let it roam around.”

“Then let it out when the shop is closed,” says Crowley. “It can roam around all it wants and you can put it back when the shop opens.”

Crowley would want to let the snake roam around 24/7, but that’s just him.

“What should its name be?”

“Crawly?”

Aziraphale laughs and Crowley feels a blush coming onto his face.

“Don’t laugh!”

“It’s cute!”

The memory pauses and Crowley lets his face slip into a sad smile. He looks up at the ceiling and watches it fade into dust.

* * *

Crowley finds himself in some bookshop that Aziraphale has dragged him to, probably in the hopes of finding something rare. He looks around the shop and sees that all the books are blank, no titles to indicate what is what, and any signs are devoid of text too. It’s a bit strange, but Crowley wouldn’t expect himself to remember those details. Aziraphale is in front of him looking at a wall of blank books, he must be able to see the titles.

“This place doesn’t appear to have any rare books in it.”

“You don’t say?”

“I thought for sure it would,” says Aziraphale, “But looks like we’ll need to search somewhere else.”

“Yeah.”

Aziraphale turns around and looks at Crowley with a curious expression.

“What? Is there something on my face?”

“Kind of,” Aziraphale says. “You look a lot less lost Crowley.”

“Lot less lost?”

“It’s hard to describe, but you look a lot happier than when I first met you.”

“I’m not following,” says Crowley.

“As I said, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, you just look more content.”

“Okay?”

“Anyways, where should we go next?”

* * *

When the next memory fades in, they’re sitting on Aziraphale’s couch. Crowley with his hair down and Aziraphale snuggled up to him with some tea. It’s peaceful and warm.

“I’ve been thinking of something Crowley.”

“And what is that?”

“Should we move in together? We’ve been dating for a good year and we’re always at each other’s places.”

“We are, yes,” says Crowley as his gaze wanders to one of the plants he bought for the shop.

“Then why don’t you move in?” Aziraphale asks. “I think it’ll make us both happy don’t you think?”

Crowley thinks about it. Moving in with Aziraphale does sound nice, it’ll mean they get to see each other every single day instead of whenever Crowley has the time. He could also get the pet snake he’s always wanted.

“Alright, we can,” he says. “Under the condition that we get a pet snake.”

“Deal.”

“Yes!” Crowley shouts as he throws his arms up in the air. “Finally!”

“It’s cute how excited you are about this.”

“Well, you know that my flat doesn’t allow pets,” Crowley says. “So, of course this is exciting to me.”

Aziraphale laughs and moves to sit his cup down on the floor. He gets up and stands in front of Crowley, then leans down and hugs him.

“I’m glad,” he says.

Crowley hugs him back and smiles.

“Thank you,” he says. “I’m surprised we agreed so quickly, though. You love your books a lot more than me.”

Aziraphale breaks the hug and looks at him, his expression hurt.

* * *

A knock on the door breaks Hastur away from the computer screen. He looks to Lucifer who is still playing on his phone, looking bored.

“Can you get that?” asks Hastur. “I don’t want to move.”

Lucifer looks up from his phone with an annoyed expression.

“I think you should,” he says. “If I leave you alone, you’re bound to mess something up.”

“Ugh, fine.”

Hastur gets up and stretches his arms, a popping noise comming from his back. He takes a glance at the computer to make sure things are working and heads out of the room. Once he’s in the throne room Hastur reaches for the door and opens it. Beelzebub stands there wearing zir work outfit and looking a bit cold.

“We’re doing fine,” says Hastur. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I wanted to. Not like I have anything better to do.”

“If you say so,” Hastur says as he steps out of the way.

“Is that a throne?”

“It is. No idea why he has it at all, but yes that’s a throne.”

“He didn’t mention that when we saw him.”

“Probably because it’s embarrassing?”

“Maybe.”

Hastur closes the door and looks at Beelzebub who is admiring Crowley’s impressive plant collection.

“These plants are well taken care of,” ze say. “They must be happy under his care, unlike his relationship.”

“Beez, that was uncalled for.”

“Sorry…”

Beelzebub walks away from the plants and down the hall. Hastur follows.

“So, things have been going well,” he says. “Not much has happened, but things never do.”

“Unless you’re alone.”

“…”

“Good to know. So, where’s the booze at?”

Hastur points down the hall and Beelzebub leaves his sight. He shakes his head and goes back to Crowley’s room. When he enters, Lucifer is pacing around the room as he talks to someone on the phone.

“You’re supposed to be monitoring him!” he shouts. “And you call me incompetent.”

Lucifer glares at him.

“No, everything’s fine,” he says into the phone. “Just a minor inconvenience from my coworker. I’ll be there soon, alright love?” 

“Who were you talking too?”

“Aziraphale. He spilled tea on one of his books and he’s real distressed about it.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“It is,” Lucifer says. “I have to go, I’m sorry.”

“Nah it’s fine. Beez is here, so I think we’ll be alright.”

“Okay, call me if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

Lucifer gathers his stuff and Hastur sits back down in front of the computer. The readouts look normal.

“I’ll catch you later Beezlebub!” Hastur hears Lucifer say.

“Later,” ze call back.

Hastur hears Beelzebub pull up a chair next to him.

“Are you ready for another long night?”

“I always am,” says Hastur with a sigh.

* * *

The next place Crowley’s memory takes him to is a time when he and Aziraphale were having one of their lazy days. They lay in Crowley’s bed snuggled up together with Aziraphale’s hand tangled up in his hair. Crowley leans into the touch and hugs Aziraphale closer to him.

“You need to open up more,” says Aziraphale. “I can never tell what you’re thinking about.”

“I’m thinking of you.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Aziraphale’s hand stops carding through Crowley’s hair and he gets out of Crowley’s embrace. Crowley whines at the loss of contact, but then Aziraphale is laying down to face him. Blue eyes stare directly into his soul.

“I mean that we need to communicate more,” says Aziraphale. “While this is all nice, I don’t know much about what you want, Crowley.”

“Communicating is boring though.”

Aziraphale frowns at the response.

“And why is that?”

“There’s no point in it if everyone loves me, but no one likes me.”


	5. Where We Belong

Lucifer stands in Aziraphale’s back room as he frets over the damaged book with various tools. The whole room smells of peach tea.

“So, what exactly did you do?”

“I was inspecting this first edition copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray while drinking some tea,” Aziraphale says. “Then Crawly scared me because he somehow got out of his cage, and I dropped my cup on the book.”

“So, Crawly escaped?”

“Yes. He only got out because he wanted attention,” says Aziraphale. “He’s back in his cage.”

“Your snake craves attention? How is that possible?”

“He just does, alright?” Aziraphale says. “Anyways I spilled tea on the book, and I don’t know if I can repair it.”

Lucifer glances over at Crawly; he’s curled up in his cage looking asleep. Then he turns his attention back to Aziraphale and walks over to him. He places a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“We’ll figure something out,” says Lucifer. “It can’t be that hard to fix it, right?”

* * *

Hastur takes another drink of beer and slams the empty bottle on the throne room’s table. As soon as Lucifer left, Beelzebub suggested that they might as well party, after all they’re stuck here all night. He had raided Crowley’s alcohol cabinet and found a decanter with lots of expensive and rare-looking wines. Hastur decided that it would be rude to drink them, despite Beelzebub’s protests. They found his fridge had some bottles of cheap wine, and Beelzebub took to drinking that. Hastur leans back in the chair and tries to form some sort of coherent thought through his drunken state. 

“Beez,” he says. “How are you holding up?”

“I-IIII’mmm fiiinnneee,” comes a drunken voice from somewhere in the room.

“You don’t sound fine, maybe it’s time to stop drinking.”

“Hmmmmm. But we’re stuck here all night.” Somehow that sentence came out fine. “I want to party and have fun.”

Hastur groans and sinks further down the throne.

“We have to monitor him,” he says. “Gabriel will yell at us if we don’t do our job properly.”

“You set it on auto, he’ll be fine.”

“Just because I did it doesn’t mean we should leave him alone.”

A wine bottle appears slams onto the table. Hastur jumps at the noise and from that Beelzebub pops up, Zir hair looking more messy than usual and eyes clouded over with drunkenness. Beeblzebub gets up and sits on the table.

“You know something, Hastur?” Ze say as ze scoot closer to Hastur.

“Um…what?”

“Gabriel giving the people memory loss is so wonderful, isn’t it?”

Hastur blinks at zir. He’s way too drunk to have this conversation.

“I guess it’s great?” he says. “I don’t know, I’m just getting paid.”

Beelzebub frowns.

“But, it’s so great though,” ze say. “Forgetting anything you want and never having to worry about it again.”

“Hm yeah. I think that you should go lay down Beez, you’re way too drunk.”

“Well so are you.”

“True,” says Hastur. “But you still need to lay down. You’re way more drunk than me.”

“Where will I go lay down at, though?”

“Um…the floor?”

“Alright.”

Beelzebub slides off the table and disappears behind it. Hastur blinks in confusion; he said that without thinking and Beelzebub took him at face value. He gets up and peers over the table. Sure enough, Beelzebub is on the floor, laying facedown.

“Alright, you stay there,” says Hastur. “I’m going back to check on Crowley.”

“Hm. Waheteva.”

Hastur moves away from the throne and heads back to Crowley’s room. He knocks over a plant but ignores it.

* * *

Crowley lays on his bed with Aziraphale by his side, both dressed only in their undergarments. They tried to have sex, but it didn’t go all that well. There was a lot of laughing and a lot of fumbling to try and get things going. After his third time dropping the lube Crowley gave up, and now they’re lying next to each other.

“You’re gorgeous, Crowley,” says Aziraphale.

“No, I’m not. You are.”

“I can’t be, look at you! All red hair and amber eyes. Much more beautiful than I’ll ever be.”

“Well, your blond hair and blue eyes are the prettiest in the world.”

“No, yours are.”

The memory fades away and soon Crowley finds himself lying on the ice of the park’s pond. Aziraphale is right beside him. Crowley smiles and looks up at the star-filled sky.

“I’d be happy to die right now,” he says.

“Is that so?” asks Aziraphale. “Then I’d never get to see you again.”

It’s in this moment that something inside of Crowley clicks. Maybe it was the words that Aziraphale said or the slow fading of his memories, but it’s here and now that Crowley realizes he doesn’t want his memories to disappear.

“Aziraphale…I want this to stop,” he says. “I don’t want to forget any of this. Even among all the bad memories, it’s not worth losing all the good ones.”

“You always realize things too late, Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “If we want this to stop, then why don’t we run?”

“That’s…a great idea.”

Getting up, Crowley holds out his hand to Aziraphale. “Then let’s run away together.”

Aziraphale smiles and grabs hold of Crowley’s hand. Crowley lifts him up.

“So, where too?” asks Crowley.

“Anywhere but here.”

Crowley breaks out in a run and races across the ice as the memory starts to disappear. Once it does, Aziraphale and Crowley are in complete darkness, but Crowley keeps going forward, jumping through various memories.

They’re at a shop, and Crowley is in the dressing room, trying on a red dress. He looks in the mirror; the dress has a slit down the side that reaches his thigh, and it has a deep plunging neckline. It’s flattering for sure, to say the least.

“I’m coming out now, Aziraphale,” he says.

“Alright.”

Crowley opens the dressing room door and Aziraphale’s mouth falls open and his eyes widen in…shock? He can’t tell.

“What do you think?”

Aziraphale takes a moment to respond.

“Gorgeous.”

The memory shatters away and Crowley jumps to the next memory.

“I hate you, Crowley!”

“Aziraphale, wait!”

Crowley’s flat door slams shut, and he’s left there with his hand outstretched. He sinks to the ground in defeat. Another fight.

“Why does this keep happening…what am I doing wrong…”

Once this memory shatters, Crowley stops and looks up into the darkness.

“Is this how it’s going to end?” he asks. “Jumping around until nothing is left?”

“Crowley…”

Whipping his head around, Crowley sees Aziraphale looking behind him. A scene fades into existence and they’re whipped away into whatever it is.

Crowley lays on the grass in the middle of an opening in a forest. Aziraphale’s hand is in his, and they’re looking up at a clear sky. 

“Hey, Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “I’m just a part of your imagination, right? So, why don’t you wake yourself up?”

“Can I really do that?”

“You can, just believe and you probably can.”

Closing his eyes Crowley lets his mind drift off.

* * *

The ceiling in Crowley’s flat stares back at him as his eyes blink awake.


	6. It’s Time to Say Goodbye

Crowley blinks a few times to make sure that he’s awake. He is. There’s some talking that he can’t make out next to him and he tries to turn towards it, but the thing on his head is heavy. Crowley tries to move his body next; it doesn’t work. Then something hits him in the head, maybe from the device, and he’s back asleep in an instant.

He drifts through darkness for a bit before landing in another memory. This one has him sitting on Aziraphale’s couch with him, both in their undergarments again. Crowley’s not wearing a shirt, clad only in his black boxers, while Aziraphale has a white shirt attached to a shirt garter. He’s also wearing a pair of black underwear that Crowley bought him.

“I couldn’t stay awake for long,” says Crowley. “Something knocked me out.”

“That’s not good, dear.”

“No, it isn’t. Now what do we do?”

Aziraphale places a hand on his chin and moves into a sitting position. Crowley stares down at his crotch for a second , then back at his face.

“We could hide in a different memory. One that isn’t on the designated path.” says Crowley.

“That’s a good idea.”

Closing his eyes, Crowley thinks back to a time when he was a kid playing in the rain.

Rain pours down on him, soaking his rain gear through. Crowley shivers and puts his arms around himself. He walks forward, boots sinking into mud.

“This appears to have worked, that’s good!” Crowley exclaims.

As soon as he finishes the sentence, the rain stops and Crowley is transported into another memory before he can even think. He lands in a bathtub and is back to his adult self.

Aziraphale sits in front of him looking perplexed and a bit shocked. “Crowley, what is happening?” he asks.

“I don’t know…” says Crowley. “But I want…ice cream.”

* * *

“Well fuck!” shouts Hastur. “I bloody lost him!”

“That’s just fucking wonderful, you did it again!”

“I didn’t do anything Beez! This entire time I was watching him !”

Beelzebub hits Hastur on the arm.

“Ouch!”

“Find him!”

“What do you think I’m doing!”

Slamming the keys, Hastur searches for Crowley among all the many images of his brain. Earlier images fly by, and some new ones too, but none of them register where Crowley is.

“I think…we need to call Gabriel…” says Beelzebub.

Hastur stops typing and stares at Beelzebub with fearful eyes. “We can’t do that!” he shouts. “He’ll see that we screwed up!”

“I don’t want to do it either,” says Beelzebub. “But we have to, otherwise you’ll screw this up again.”

“Fine. Call him.”

Hastur focuses back on the computer to try and find Crowley as he hears Beelzebub make the phone call to Gabriel.

“Hi, Gabriel,” says Beelzebub. “Um we have a problem…”

“It wasn’t my fault this time!” shouts Hastur. 

“We kind of lost Crowley.”

Silence fills the room, and then Hastur somehow manages to hear Gabriel shouting through the phone. “You what!? I can’t believe you both! How did you even manage this!?”

“It was Hastur’s fault.”

“Hey!”

“I’ll be over there soon,” says Gabriel. “Don’t you dare touch anything until I get there.”

Hastur takes his hands off the computer and looks at Beelzebub.“He’s going to kill us.”

“You think?”

“God, this is such a mess.”

“I know that,” says Beelzebub. “And speaking of messes we need to clean up. Can’t have Gabriel finding out we made even more of a mess.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Getting up, Hastur takes one last glance at the computer and grabs an empty beer bottle. He leans down to pick up an empty plastic bag and tosses the bottle into it, and then clears the rest of the table and ties the bag. He exits the room as Beelzebub is picking up some bottles that managed to roll onto the floor. Hastur walks past the plants, being careful this time to not hit them, and heads to the kitchen. He tosses the bag into the trash, grabs a trash bag, and goes back into the throne room. This entire room will never stop being ridiculous. Hastur clears the table off and picks up a bunch of snack wrappers that got left on it. Then he picks up the floor, picking up a total of seven beer bottles and the wine bottle Beelzebub had. Once the bag is full, Hastur ties it and places it in the kitchen for later pick-up.

“That should be good, I think.” he says.

“It certainly looks a lot better,” Beelzebub says behind him. “Let’s just hope Gabriel doesn’t question anything when he arrives.”

As if on cue, a knock on the door echoes through the room. Beelzebub’s eyes widen and Hastur’s heart starts to beat. 

“You go get that!” says Beelzebub.

“R-right.”

Moving past Beelzebub, Hastur heads to the door and opens it without any hesitation. Gabriel stands there clad in his nightwear, white silk pajamas with purple roses printed onto them. 

“I came as fast as I could,” he says. “Where is he?”

Hastur points to his left and Gabriel runs off towards the room.

“Mind the plants!” Hastur shouts after him.

Closing the door, Hastur heads back to the room. Gabriel is hovering over the computer typing away, and Beelzebub is sitting on the bed.

“I can’t believe you lost him,” says Gabriel. “Hastur, you suck at your job, but at the same time you’re good at what you do.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” asks Hastur.

“Think endearment.” 

Rolling his eyes, Hastur takes the seat that Lucifer was in.

“So, will you be able to find him?” asks Beelzebub.

“I’m on it, don’t worry,” says Gabriel. 

* * *

Crowley pokes the rubber duck and watches it float across the water. It hits Aziraphale and bounces back to him. 

“I still want ice cream,” says Crowley.

“I should be the one craving ice cream, not you.”

“True, but for this instance I want some.”

Aziraphale looks around the room. “Okay, so what do we do?”

“Hm?”

“How are we going to get out of here,” says Aziraphale. “They’re going to find us eventually.”

“I don’t know, we could try a different memory.”

As soon as the words leave Crowley’s mouth, a loud bang sounds from somewhere in the room. Crowley grabs the rubber duck and holds it to him. 

“What was that?” asks Aziraphale. “Did they find us?”

Another bang sounds off from somewhere and then the voice of Gabriel enters the room.

“Found you.”

Crowley looks at Aziraphale with wide eyes, and before he can say anything, another loud bang sounds off. Then the water starts draining. 

“Fuck,” says Aziraphale. 

The water drains fast, taking both Crowley and Aziraphale down with it.

* * *

Crowley awakens back to his flat ceiling with a gasp. This time he’s able to look around, and see’s Gabriel on the computer staring at him.

“Oh, look who woke up, that’s troublesome.”

“Hm what?” Crowley grumbles.

Gabriel rummages for something in a bag and pulls out a needle. He gets up and walks to Crowley, needle poised over his arm.

“Shut up and go back to sleep.”

The needle stabs Crowley’s arm and he’s brought back to darkness in an instant.

* * *

Crowley ends up back at the Ritz in his usual spot, and Aziraphale is there too, looking relieved.

“I almost made it out,” says Crowley. “But they put me back.”

“I can see that.”

“We’re going to have to keep running.”

Grabbing Aziraphale’s hand Crowley runs through the restaurant. It disappears and they’re back to jumping through various memories. He doesn’t pay attention to them this time around, so they all rush by in a blur.

“How about we hide in an embarrassing memory?” asks Aziraphale.

“Excuse me?”

“They wouldn’t think to look there. Maybe.”

“Well I’m out of ideas, so we’ll go with that.”

Crowley thinks of an embarrassing memory, the time that he was caught masturbating by his mom. He ends up on his bed poised with a green tentacle dildo in his ass and his mom by the door giving him a disapproving stare.

“Um, I can explain?”

“Lock the door next time.”

Okay, this is too embarrassing, next one.

He thinks of a different memory, a time when he was forced to eat a worm under pressure. Crowley is transported to a school playground with some other kids who all have blank faces. A worm sits in a glass cup and all the kids are shouting.

“Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!”

Crowley lifts the cup and brings it up to his mouth.

Everything pauses and Crowley watches the memory fade away for the umpteenth time.

* * *

Beelzebub sits on the bed staring intently at Gabriel. Ze always found him to be quite attractive, the blue almost purple eyes and muscular body. It hits all the right notes. Beelzebub looks towards Hastur who is looking positively bored without anything to do.

“I’m going to go outside,” he says. “I need some fresh air.”

“Alright, don’t take too long.” Says Gabriel.

Hastur gets up and leaves the room. Now it’s just Beelzebub and Gabriel. Ze goes back to staring at him. He’s all handsome, and kind too — despite what some people say, he does have a soft side. Beelzebub wiggles on the bed. It’s just them in the room at the moment, so they could do whatever they want. Ze gets up off the bed and goes to hover over Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Is there something you need, Beelzebub?”

“I really admire your work, you know.”

Gabriel stops typing for a second, but he resumes it. He doesn’t look at Beelzebub. “That’s nice of you to say,” he says. “It’s hard work, you know.”

“No, I mean I really admire it.”

Beelzebub puts zir arms around Gabriel; he’s nice and warm. The moment doesn’t last long, as Gabriel gets up so fast that it makes Beelzebub hit the ground. Ze looks up at Gabriel, who still isn’t looking at zir.

“We can’t be doing this,” he says. “I think you should go home, Beelzebub.”

“But why, though? I…I like you.”

“Yes, I know that, and that’s why we can’t be together .”

Getting into a sitting position, Beelzebub stares up at him sadly.

“Why not?”

He turns around at that. His eyes look remorseful.

“We were together once and it didn’t work out, so you got your memories erased.”

Beelzebub gives him a confused look. “But…why though?”

“I’m done talking, just…go home, Beelzebub.”

Getting up, Beelzebub turns away and walks out of the room. A stray tear falls from zir face.

* * *

Beelzebub sits on a chair in one of the procedure rooms, holding a box with some files and tapes. It’s zirs. Ze pull out one of the tapes labeled ‘first meeting’,place it into the recorder, and press play.

“Hello, my name is Beelzebub Sandoval and I am here to get my memories erased of one Gabriel Mathews.”

“Alright Beelzebub,” comes the voice of Gabriel. “So, tell me, how did you two first meet?”

* * *

Crowley sits on Aziraphale’s couch with an almost empty bottle of wine in his hand. He was invited over for drinks and now he’s drunk. Aziraphale is on the couch with him, positively drunk as well.

“Ugh…everything hurts.” he whines.

“How can it hurt? Alcohol isn’t supposed to do that.”

“I know, but it does.”

Taking the last swig of wine, Crowley somehow manages to not break the bottle and sets it down beside the couch. He sinks into the couch a bit more, long legs spreading out.

“I’m going to have to stay here tonight.”

“Hm…alright.”

Azirapahle scoots over and rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder. He almost jumps out of his skin. A hand then grabs Crowley’s and that just about kills him, this kind of affection is not something he’s used to. He blushes and doesn’t look at Aziraphale.

“Um…”

“You’re warm, Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “So very warm.”

Crowley blushes even more, and for once he’s glad that he didn’t decide to take off his sunglasses. His eyes would for sure rat him out. Azirapahle is warm against his side and it’s nice, if he’s being honest. Not often does Crowley get to be in the presence of another person with this amount of affection. Aziraphale shifts beside him and moves a bit closer, their thighs now touching. Crowley can only blush more and not look at him.

“So, um…I’ll take the couch,” he says, trying to cut the tension. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Are you sure? You can sleep in my bed.”

That sends Crowley’s mind to places, and he can feel something heading down to his groin. He rushes the thought out of his mind. “Oh no, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he says. “The couch is fine.”

“But intrusion is fun though.”

Crowley just about chokes, Azirapahle has no idea what he’s saying at all .

“No, no I insist, please.”

“Hm. Alright.”

Aizraphale detaches himself from him and moves to stand up, forgetting that their hands are still clasped together. It yanks Crowley a bit forward.

“Azira-”

“I’ll go get a blanket or two.”

He takes a step and Crowley is yanked off the couch . Crowley stumbles and then falls right onto Aziraphale. They hit the ground with a crash. With his free hand Crowley manages to break the fall, but he ends up a few inches above Azirapahle ’s. Crowley’s hair acts as a curtain between them as he stares into heavenly blue eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “We were um…hands, yeah, and you moving made me fall and…”

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything, he merely stares into Crowley’s sunglasses clad eyes. Crowley shifts his gaze away to look at something else. He doesn’t notice the hand reaching up to his sunglasses until he feels them being grabbed. Crowley whips his gaze back to Aziraphale.

“Is it…alright if I…?”

The question is asked with some hesitation. Crowley isn’t one for taking off his sunglasses all that often, it’s too personal for one, and second, his eyes aren’t that common of a color. For whatever reason they’re amber, and that alone draws way too much unnecessary attention to him. Crowley gulps and just nods his head. He’s not sure why he does it, but a small part of his trusts Aziraphale. His sunglasses come off slowly, and then they’re set aside. Aziraphale smiles at him, and Crowley’s heart picks up in rhythm. 

“Your eyes, they’re beautiful.”

That makes Crowley’s heart soar. Not even any of his past relationships told him that.

“No one’s…ever said to me before…”

Aziraphale lifts a hand up and hovers it over Crowley’s cheek, a wordless ask if he can proceed. Crowley nods, and Aziraphale’s hand cups his face. He leans into the touch. Aziraphale looks at him with a gaze full of love and adoration. “They’re a bunch of fools then, because they’re the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Crowley feels the prick of tears in his eyes. It must be the alcohol making him feel things more than usual, but the comment is so heartwarming. He fights back the tears and gives Aziraphale a smile.“Thank you.”

The hand on Crowley’s face guides him down, and soon his forehead is pressed against Aziraphale’s. Their lips are millimeters apart. Up close like this, Crowley can really see the blue in Aziraphale’s eyes, along with a hint of green.

Aziraphale rubs his thumb on Crowley’s cheek. “Is this, okay?”

“Yes.”

Soft warm lips connect with Crowley’s in a chaste kiss. Crowley closes his eyes and presses further; it’s been so long since anyone kissed him. He gets into a more comfortable position and cups Aziraphale’s face with his hands. Their mouths move lazily against each other in soft motions. A taste of alcohol lingers on their breaths, but Crowley ignores it in favor of continuing to kiss soft lips.

Crowley isn’t sure how long they stay kissing, but he’s the first pull away. He presses his forehead against Aziraphale’s and opens his eyes. Blue stares back at him.

“That was…wonderful,” he says.

“It sure was, dear.”

Aziraphale uses his other hand to put a strand of Crowley’s hair behind his ear. Then he places his hand on Crowley’s face and brings him back down for a quick peck of lips.

The memory freezes right there, and soon everything slowly fades into a shower of white dust. Aziraphale is the last thing to disappear.

* * *

Crowley follows Aziraphale around in the bookshop as he points out the various rare editions of books that he’s collected. None of them have anything written on them.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” says Aziraphale. “You ran off on me after all.”

“It was dumb of me to do that, yeah. I was nervous is all.”

Aziraphale stops and whirls around to face him.

“There’s no need to be nervous, dear.”

“For you maybe, but not me,” says Crowley. “Anyways, do you want to go out?”

“Sure, but on one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’m not responsible for your happiness,” Aziraphale says. “I have my own to worry about, just like you.”

Crowley gives him a confused look, but he guesses he can agree to that.

“Alright, I’ll agree to your terms.”

“Wonderful!”

Aziraphale grabs his hand and they travel further down into the shop until they hit a small office area. Turning around, Aziraphale looks at Crowley with a sad expression.

“Say, Crowley…do you remember me?”

The memory pauses and Aziraphale slowly disappears in a shower of white dust.


	7. I’ve Been Searching for You

Crowley sits away from Adam’s beach birthday party, watching the waves of Newhaven roll in and out. Crowley was asked to come even though he complained a little, but the Young’s are good friends of his so he couldn’t say no. Regardless, once the festivities picked up he snuck off with some cake to somewhere more quiet. Crowley wraps his arms around his legs. He gets lost in the sound of the crashing waves and the noise of the party. It’s oddly comforting, in a way. Crowley becomes so lost in it that he almost doesn’t hear someone approaching him.

“Can I sit next to you?” asks an unfamiliar voice.

Looking up, Crowley sees a man with short curly blond hair and blue eyes, wearing an oversized coat. He’s kind of cute.

“Sure,” says Crowley. “There’s plenty of space.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Crowley stares at the man with a look of confusion, what did he just call him?

“Uh…”

“Oh! Um…sorry, force of habit,” says the man. “I uh…call everyone that.”

“That’s interesting.”

“I get told that a lot.”

The man takes a seat next to Crowley and leans back a little into the sand.

Crowley turns back to the ocean. “So, what’s your name?” he asks.

“Aziraphale. Aziraphale Fell,” the man replies.

“Anthony J. Crowley, but you can call me Crowley.”

“Well, nice to meet you Crowley.”

Crowley rests his chin on his knees and draws his legs a little closer. “So what brings you here, Aziraphale?”

“I got invited.”

“So, the same as me, then.”

Aziraphale shifts beside him and Crowley looks at him. He’s laying in the sand with his arms spread out. Crowley raises an eyebrow. Aziraphale is a bit strange, if he’s being honest.

“I want to sleep,” Aziraphale says. “The party wore me out, as did the tasty cake.”

“Sleeping out here is not recommended. It’s way too cold.”

“And that’s a problem.”

Crowley rolls his eyes; that should be obvious enough. He thinks for a bit about what they could do instead of freezing to death—hit up a pub if there is one, go back to the party, or go to that house Crowley found earlier. 

“How about we ditch this place?” asks Crowley. “It would give us something to do and prevent us from freezing our arses off.”

Aziraphale laughs, and it’s the most beautiful thing Crowley has ever heard, warm and so soft.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere,” says Crowley. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

Getting up, Crowley holds out his hand. Aziraphale eyes it with some suspicion , but he takes it and Crowley pulls him up.

“Alright, so show me where this somewhere is.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Crowley turns around and starts walking down the beach, his hand still interlocked with Aziraphale’s. Azirapahle walks beside him, a little too close, and their shoulders brush with each movement. Why they’re walking so close, Crowley doesn’t know; it just happened. They continue to walk down the beach in silence until they arrive at an old two-story house. It’s made of white painted wood and it sinks a bit into the hill that it rests on.

“An old house?”

“Yeah,” says Crowley. “I saw it earlier and thought it looked neat.”

“Are you condoning that we break in?” Aziraphale teases.

“We’re visiting, not breaking in.”

“Like that makes it any better.” says Aziraphale.

Turning around, Crowley looks at Aziraphale with a smirk. “Afraid we’ll get caught?” he asks. “Are you a goodie two-shoes?”

“…You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“Only the best kind.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes at him and sighs. “Fine,” he says. “We can go in, but if we get caught, I’m putting all the blame on you.”

“Deal.”

Crowley faces the house and walks up the steps. Their hands are still interlocked. He wonders why they haven’t let go. Reaching the door, Crowley tries the knob and finds it unlocked.

“That…never happens,” Aziraphale comments. 

“We got lucky then, that’s good.”

The door opens with a creak and they step inside. It’s dark, and Crowley considers turning a light on, but that could get them caught. “Let’s search and see if we can find a flashlight.”

“We have phones, don’t we?”

“Oh, right.”

Crowley digs out his phone and turns it on. The light shines onto an old wood floor. Next to him, Aziraphale turns his own phone on.

“That’s a bit better now,” Aziraphale says. “So, where do we explore?”

“Since we’re on the ground floor, let’s start here.”

“Sounds good.”

Aziraphale lets go of Crowley’s hand—the loss of warmth is lonely—and walks off down a hall. Crowley flexes his hand; the tingling of warmth is still there. He points his phone in a random direction and it ends up in what looks like a living room. Crowley heads to the area. When he gets there, he inspects a floral printed couch, it appears to be old and worn. He moves past it and looks at a painting that hangs on the wall. It’s of a penis, and he’s too afraid to question why anyone would have that. 

“I’m just going to forget what I saw,” he says.

He turns away from the painting and shines his phone around more of the room. Besides the couch and the questionable painting there’s nothing else of interest in it. He moves out of the room and goes down the hall that Aziraphale went down. There are more questionable penis paintings lining the wall, and Crowley wonders what kind of house they’ve ended up in. He passes by several doors that he’s not going to try and open for fear of finding even more questionable paintings. Crowley ends up in a small open area at the end of the hall. there’s a staircase to the right and two doors on the left. One of them is opened and there’s a light flickering around the room.

“Are you in there, Aziraphale?”

“Yes,” he calls back. “I found some rare books!”

That raises some alarms for Crowley. What kind of questionable books are they? “Um, that’s great!” he replies.

“It is! They’re books about the history of penis sizes represented in art.”

Crowley is taken aback by this, so much that he almost falls from the absurdity. “And you’re excited about this?” he asks. “Also, this is technically stealing.”

“Rare books are rare books, dear,” says Azirapahle as he stuffs a book into his bag. “And it’s not stealing , I’m simply borrowing them.”

Shaking his head, Crowley shines his light around and decides that maybe he should just go wait for Aziraphale in the front. This house is too weird for his liking. 

“I’m going back to the front,” he says. “This place is weird. Come when you’re ready.”

There’s some shuffling coming from the room and then Aziraphale steps out, a box of books in his arms. “I’ll go with. I think I found what I came for.”

“Alright.”

Turning around, Crowley heads back down the hall with Aziraphale in tow. Their footsteps echo through the empty house. They reach the living area and Aziraphale goes to sit the books down on a table that’s by a window; he looks out of it. Crowley follows him to it and gazes out into the ocean.

“This was fun, Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Breaking into houses is not something I do often, but we can hang out again if you’d like.”

“That would be lovely.”

He hears Aziraphale move and then his head is resting on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley just about jumps at the contact.

“Um…”

“You’re a nice guy, Crowley.”

“I’m not nice.”

“Even if you don’t think you are, I think that you’re nice.”

That makes Crowley blush and he’s grateful that the dark hides it. No one’s really described him as being nice before. Kind, maybe, but nice is a new thing. He scoots closer to Aziraphale and enjoys the warmth that’s offered. A hand grabs onto his and Crowley smiles.

There’s a loud crash from somewhere in the house and then there’s the sound of rushing water. Crowley looks down and sees water flooding the house. Then he detaches himself from Aziraphale and looks at him. “What’s happening?” 

“It’s the last memory of us,” says Aziraphale. “After this you’ll forget all about me, just like I did.”

“I don’t want to go, Aziraphale!” he shouts. “I don’t want to forget any of this. We have made a lot of mistakes, Aziraphale, but I still love you.”

More water rushes in, and soon it’s up to Crowley’s ankles. Aziraphale turns away from the window and looks at Crowley with a smile. The wind picks up and the house starts to collapse, chunks hitting the floor with loud splashes. 

“We both made the choice to forget, Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “So, it’s too late for regrets now. But even in these last moments I loved you so much, Crowley, more than anyone else.”

The wall behind Aziraphale falls, and more of the house flies off into the distance. The water is now up to Crowley’s knees. Tears fall down his face.

“Aziraphale…I don’t want to go.”

“Don’t say that, goodbyes are not my specialty, dear.”

Everything around them stops—the water stops flowing and the house stops breaking. It lasts longer than usual, but then everything starts to fade into white dust.

“No!” Crowley shouts.

Tears stream down Aziraphale’s face as he smiles at Crowley for the last time.

“Crowley,” he says. “Goodbye, my love.”

Aziraphale disappears in a shower of gold dust, and the rest of the room follows in white dust.

Crowley reaches out his hand and screams.


	8. The Truth and the Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the Yellowcard song The Sound of You and Me.

Hastur places the head piece back in the box and glances over at Gabriel, who is turning off the laptop. When Hastur came back from his break, Gabriel looked distressed but wouldn’t tell him what happened.

Gabriel closes the computer and stands up. “Another successful job done,” he says. 

“…Yeah.”

With that Gabriel grabs the laptop and exits the room. Hastur closes the box, picks it up, and walks to the door. He turns around and looks at Crowley for the last time.

“Goodluck moving forward, Crowley.”

Hastur closes the door.

* * *

Crowley blinks awake at the sunlight filtering in through his window. He drapes his arm over his eyes, his head throbbing. Groaning in discomfort, he snuggles further into his bed. Maybe he won’t go into work today, he considers. He glances at his snake shaped digital alarm clock. The bright red numbers read 8:00am. He could get to work on time if he hurries, but his head hurts too much to think about it any further. Sighing in defeat, Crowley feels around on his bedside table for his phone and scrolls through his list of contacts until he arrives at his boss’s number. He types out a quick message that he’s sick and can’t come in, then closes his phone and sets it aside. Now that was taken care of Crowley doesn’t know what to do. He is free. Well, he could sleep some more, which sounds nice, or he could go somewhere, anywhere, he supposed. Travel to Edinburgh, Manchester, fly to India even. Newhaven. That sounds like a good idea. Newhaven.

Getting up, Crowley stretches, puts his hair in a loose ponytail, and heads out of his room. He gets to the living room and finds one of his plants on the floor. The pot is still intact, but there’s a bunch of soil everywhere. Bending down he picks up the plant, brushes the soil back in as best he can, and places it on his desk. He makes a mental note to hoover it up later. In his drunken state Crowley must have at some point knocked it over last night. He smiles down at it and heads to the shower.

* * *

Crowley locks the door to his flat behind him and walks to the elevator. Along the way he passes by his neighbor Michael, who is in the middle of a phone call. He gives her a polite wave and presses the elevator call button. The elevator dings and Crowley steps in. Some annoyingly generic elevator music plays, but he tries to ignore it. He takes out his phone to check the weather. It’s going to be -15°C in Newhaven and here he is being dumb and going anyway. However, Crowley was committed. He’d already skived off work and was determined to not waste the day. Even if that day is spent freezing his arse off on the coast. The elevator dings and Crowley put’s away his phone and steps into the lobby. He walks past the receptionist Chuck Shurley, who is busy talking to someone on the phone and doesn’t even look up at him. Crowley steps outside to a cold blast of air. Maybe this was a mistake. Walking as fast as he can to his Bentley, his hood up to the wind, Crowley arrives and discovers a dent on the driver’s door. He curses under his breath. That’ll be a little expensive to fix. Digging around his pockets Crowley feels for his keys, but he doesn’t find them. He curses again, not wanting to go back inside. Crowley decides to take the train instead.

Taking a glance at his watch, Crowley’s eyes widen. The train is going to depart soon. He makes a run for it, ignoring any stares that are shot his way. The cold air bites at his face as he runs along many sidewalks in a mad dash to reach the train station. Crowley isn’t sure as to why he must get to Newhaven at all, he just knows he needs to be there. It’s an odd feeling and one he can’t place, but maybe once he gets there, he’ll figure it out.

He reaches the train station with some time to spare. There’s a throng of people walking through the station, but Crowley spares them no glances and darts inside. He swipes his train card on the gate, checks the train times one last time, and heads off to the platform. Once there he stands with the few other people waiting. It’s warm inside the station though everyone looks cold. Hats are pulled down over ears and scarves wrapped up to cover noses. Crowley shuffles his feet around then pulls out his phone to check the time. The train should be arriving soon.

The intercom cackles to life announcing that the train to Newhaven will be arriving shortly and for all passengers to step away from the platform’s edge. Crowley steps back as the noise of the train fills the room. It arrives with some screeching and soon comes to a halt; the doors open with a swish. Crowley goes in and finds a seat that’s right by the window; he rests his head against it and pulls out his sketchbook from his bag. Inside are a bunch of drawings he’s done over the last few months, though some of them Crowley doesn’t remember doing. The train pulls out of the station as Crowley fishes a pencil out of his pocket. He starts drawing.

* * *

Crowley stands on the beach as the cold wind bites at this face. There are no other people around as no one besides him is so dumb as to go out on the beach in the freezing cold. He’s been pacing around for the past hour trying to collect his thoughts.

“This feels so pointless,” he mumbles. “There’s nothing here, and yet it all feels so familiar.”

Coming up the oceans edge Crowley avoids the rising tide and stares out into a grey sky. His life until this point has had many ups and downs. He tried marriage once, though that didn’t last long, and at one point he almost considered living out in the middle of nowhere. Now he has an alright job working to rescue snakes, but something is missing from it. Crowley sighs and waits for some sort of answer to come.

* * *

Crowley returns to his spot on the train and once again pulls out his sketchbook. His time at the beach was uneventful; all he found was the smell of salty air and his own boring thoughts.

“Hey! Hey, you,” says a close voice. “Do you have a book I can borrow? I forgot mine.”

Crowley looks up from his drawing and at the man speaking to him. He appears to be around the same age as Crowley, late 40’s, with curly short blond hair, clothes that went out of style maybe a century ago, and he had the most beautiful blue eyes.

“Um, no I don’t, sorry.”

“Aw,” the man sounds disappointed. “Well that’s alright dear, thank you.”

“What did you call me?” asks Crowley. Did he hear that right?

“Oh! I’m sorry, that just slipped out,” says the man. He cocks his head at Crowley as if intrigued. “Um, have we met before by any chance?”

“No, we haven’t, I would remember if we had.”

“Why thank you um…”

“Anthony Crowley, but please call me Crowley.”

“My names Aziraphale Fell,” says the man. “It’s nice to meet you Crowley.”

“Same to you Aziraphale. So, are you from Newhaven?”

“One second.”

Aziraphale slips back onto his seat and Crowley hears some rummaging then sees him stand up. Exiting out of his aisle, bag in hand, Aziraphale sits in the seat right beside Crowley.

“I’m heading back from a visit in Newhaven,” he says.

“A visit with family?” asks Crowley.

“You could say that, I was visiting my mum,” says Aziraphale. “So, why were you there?”

Crowley thinks for a bit. He’s not sure how to answer as he himself didn’t even know why he went there.

“For something work related,” he lies. “I work for a snake rescue center and they needed me in Newhaven to help rescue a batch of abandoned snakes.”

“I kind of assumed you liked snakes from that tattoo under your ear, but I didn’t know you liked them that much.”

“Oh yes, snakes are cute and cuddly.”

“I agree!”

“So, you like snakes too?” asks Crowley.

“Not as much as you, not enough to get a tattoo, but yes I do like them.”

“I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“I agree.”

The conversation stops as Aziraphale rummages for something in his bag again. From their chat Crowley has determined that Aziraphale is nice, and kind of cute too. He pushes that last thought away; now’s not the time for that.

“It appears that I have forgotten my car keys,” Aziraphale says. “I hope I didn’t leave them at mum’s…”

“Oh no, that’s not good. I can give you a ride home if you want,” says Crowley. “We’ll need to get my keys first, though, since I forgot them too.”

Aziraphale beams at him with a smile that is like the sun. Crowley feels his heart stop.

* * *

Crowley parks the Bentley in front of an old looking bookshop that he’s passed by many times in the past. He’s never been inside though. Aziraphale gets out of the Bentley and leans on the window, his smile bright.

“Come inside,” he says. “I want to thank you for going through all this trouble for me.”

“Oh no, I can’t do that.”

“What, why?”

“Because I, uh, have to get home and feed my pet snake,” Crowley says.

“We were just at your flat Crowley, you don’t own a snake.”

Yes, Crowley doesn’t own a snake. Yet. Chuck wouldn’t let him have one. The no pets’ rule was strictly adhered to.

“Look, you helped me out, so I want to be nice.”

“Niceness scares me.”

“I have a pet snake.”

Crowley’s eyes perk up.

“I’m coming in for the snake, and only for the snake. To see that it’s properly cared for.”

“Of course.”

Turning off the Bentley, Crowley gets out and follows Aziraphale inside the shop. Warmth hits his him and the smell of old books fills his lungs. All the shelves are aligned in tidy rows and filled to the brim with books. Past all the shelves are a white couch and a messy desk that Crowley can assume serves as Aziraphale’s office. However, most importantly there is a tank with a large black snake. Crowley takes off his coat and rushes over to the couch. He kneels to get a better view and stares at the snake. It’s curled up in the middle of the tank sleeping, but its head is resting on top of its coils and its pink tongue is sticking out. He’ll have to ask Aziraphale if he can pet it sometime.

“What kind of tea to do you like?” Aziraphale calls from somewhere in the shop. “I have a choice between green, peach, mango, apple, and many other exotic teas.”

“Um peach is fine, thank you!” He calls back. “What’s the snakes name!?”

“Got it! And his name is Crawly.”

That’s both a clever pun and something that kind of scares Crowley. The name was so familiar, and not just because of the resemblance to his own. He turns away from Crawly and sinks onto the plush couch. Crowley digs out his phone and opens Twitter to help pass the time. He’s reading a Tweet about some new meme everyone’s obsessing over when Aziraphale comes out with the tea and sets it down on the desk.

Tossing his phone to the side Crowley takes the tea with care and watches the steam coming off it. He raises the cup and takes a sip; the sweet hot beverage instantly warms his entire body, making Crowley sigh in content.

“So, this is my bookshop,” says Aziraphale. “I love collecting rare books, so many of these aren’t for sale, but I do have a small section that is available for purchase.”

“You own a bookshop and you don’t sell things? How can you afford to keep this place open?”

“I have my ways dear, trust me.”

Crowley shakes his head and goes back to take another drink of his tea. He looks around a little more at the shop and sees more old oddities, gramophone, statues of some sort, and an elaborately decorated floor. It gives off a feeling of home which makes sense since it appears that Aziraphale lives here. But it also feels familiar. Crowley glances over at Aziraphale. He has spectacles on and is hovering over a damaged book with tools Crowley can’t identify. The spectacles make him look even cuter than he already is. Crowley almost spits out his tea at that thought; where is this all coming from? He turns away from Aziraphale and tries to make some conversation.

“What book is that?”

“Oh, it’s a copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ , quite old.”

“I expected no less than that,” says Crowley. “Do you repair them?”

“Yes, I do! If you pull up a chair, I’ll show you!”

Crowley takes another drink of his tea then gets up. He walks over to Azirphale’s desk and puts the cup down before pulling up a nearby chair. Aziraphale gets one of his instruments out and starts explaining the function of it.

“Now you see this one is for carefully turning the pages. Watch.”

The device is placed on the page and it turns with ease. Crowley doesn’t understand why you would need one of those, but he’s nonetheless intrigued.

“Fascinating.”

“This next one is for identifying the different marks on the page.”

Crowley scoots his chair a little closer and squints at the page. He can’t tell what Aziraphale is doing, but the soft sound of his voice is calming. So calming that he stops paying attention and only focuses on the sound of it, nodding along every so often. Soon they somehow end up drifting close enough that they touch thighs, and it’s comforting in a way, familiar, almost as though they’ve done this before.

“Crowley, let’s go to the park.”

“Hm?” Crowley says as his brain gets pulled back to reality.

“I am in need of some fresh air, so the park sounds good for that.”

“It’s freezing out there! Are you mad?”

“Yes.”

Crowley stares at Aziraphale in disbelief.

“Alright, we can go,” he says. “But if we freeze to death then it’s your fault.”

“We’ll be fine dear.”

* * *

There’s no one at the park when they get there, because why would anyone be outside in the freezing cold in the middle of the night. Aziraphale has grabbed Crowley’s hand and dragged him down the park’s snow-covered path. He shivers a little from the cold as Aziraphale continues to drag him along. They soon arrive at the pond, which has frozen over.

“Let’s get on it.”

“I’m sorry, what?” asks Crowley

“You heard me.”

“It’s dangerous!” shouted Crowley.

“I can assure you it’s fine dear, I’ve done it lots of times.”

“With who?”

“Friends, now come on.”

Aziraphale tugs on Crowley’s hand and drags him over to the fence that surrounds the pond. He climbs over it and Crowley has little choice but to follow along. As soon as Crowley’s feet hit the ice he almost slips, but Aziraphale catches him. He turns away embarrassed as soft laughter fills his ears.

“We can lay down if you’d like.”

“That doesn’t sound safe either, but it’s better than me slipping and falling on my arse.”

With some ease, Crowley sits down and then lays down on the ice. The cold bites into his back, but he’ll get used to it. Aziraphale follows him and soon they’re both laying down and staring at the stars. A hand grabs a hold of Crowley’s and he snaps his head to look at Aziraphale, who’s staring at the night sky.

“Do you know any constellations Crowley?”

“I do, why?” asks Crowley.

“Can you tell me some of them?”

“Shouldn’t you be the one telling me?” says Crowley. “You’re always buried in books.”

“I could but hearing it from you is more special.”

Crowley’s heart skips a beat and his face flushes. They’ve only known each other for a few hours and yet Aziraphale is saying things like they’re a couple. He turns to stare at the stars and hopes that Aziraphale can’t see his face.

“Let’s see…there’s Draco, Cancer, and um…Ursa Major?”

“That’s not all of them that are out right now, but a good effort.”

“Then why don’t you name them?”

“I don’t want to.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.

“Alright, do whatever you want, then.”

The hand in Crowley’s squeezes his and for a bit there he almost forgot that they just met. He turns his head to look at Aziraphale and is met with brilliant blue eyes staring back at him.

“You know something Crowley?” Airaphale asks.

“…What?”

“You’re nice.”

“I am not nice, you’ve got that all wrong.”

“Do I?” asks Aziraphale. “You seem nice and downright delightful too.”

Crowley feels the heat rise to his face. It’s been a long time since anyone’s said that to him.

“…I mean…I guess I can be?”

Seeming pleased by his answer Aziraphale laughs and beams at him once more with his warm smile.

“This was fun, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “We should do this again sometime.”

Crowley smiles.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

* * *

“Why are all these CDs of Queen?” asks Aziraphale as he flips through Crowley’s CD collection while they drive back from lunch.

“I happen to like them, you have a problem?”

“No, but it’s weird that they’re all just The Best of Queen.”

“I have one non-Queen CD, it’s of a group called Yellowcard,” Crowley says. “It was given to me from my friend Dagon for the same complaint of only having Queen CDs”.

“I’ll need to get you another one too, because this is just ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Out of the corner of his eye Crowley sees Aziraphale put the CDs down and throw up his hands. Aziraphale doesn’t make a retort and opts for looking out the window instead. Not that it matters to Crowley since he needs to focus on the road. They soon they arrive at Aziraphale’s book shop.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Crowley asks.

“Hm, we could, or I could just stay at your place.”

“Huh?”

“Can I?” asks Aziraphale.

“We’ve only known each other for like three days, isn’t it weird to ask to stay at someone’s place after barely meeting them?”

“I do it all the time, it’ll be fine.”

Crowley sits there stunned as Aziraphale laughs. He gets out of the Bentley and leans back in through the window.

“I need to grab some things,” Aziraphale says. “It won’t take long.”

Leaving Crowley, Aziraphale disappears into his bookshop. Crowley sighs and wonders how he got himself into this. He leans back in his seat and relaxes while he waits for Aziraphale to get back. Crowley becomes a little too relaxed though and he doesn’t notice someone approach the Bentley.

“What are you doing here?”

Nearly jumping out of his seat Crowley turns to see the owner of the voice. He has short black hair, brown eyes, a tall frame, and handsome features. The guy’s the picture-perfect dream man.

“I’m just dropping off a friend. Who are you?”

The guy doesn’t answer and wanders off down the street.

“Strange,” Crowley says aloud to himself. “Wonder who he was.”

He looks back to Aziraphale’s bookshop and sees him coming out, a letter is in his han d. Aziraphale enters the Bentley and looks at Crowley with a confused expression. “I found a weird letter,” he says. “It’s addressed to both of us.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Crowley looks down at it. Sure enough, both his and Azirpahale’s names are written on it. 

“Should we open it?”

“We could, though it could be a trap.”

“Fair,” says Crowley. “Though it being addressed to both us even though we just met is weird.”

“Hm. Then I guess we should.”

Aziraphale rips open the letter and pulls out some CDs, and then a piece of paper. He sets the CDs aside and reads the letter.

Dear Patients of Heaven,

My name is Beelzebub, the receptionist of Heaven that operates under Dr. Gabriel Mathews. I’m writing to you all to say that I find the process of memory erasure to be unethical. It causes too much damage to anyone who does it, such as myself. Enclosed in this letter is the recordings of everyone’s sessions. I’m giving them back as the rightful owners deserve to have them.

Sincerely,

Beelzebub Sandoval

When the letter is finished, they both stare in stunned silence. Memory erasure? That sounds fake and absurd. Crowley blinks and stares at Aziraphale in confusion. “Um, what?” he finally says.

“I don’t know,” says Aziraphale. “This sounds like some sort of prank.”

Eyeing the CDs, Crowley grabs one and reads the writing on it; Aziraphale Fell: Memory Recording Session 1.

“This one, um, belongs to you.”

“That’s just…I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” says Crowley. “Do you want to play it?”

“Alright…”

Crowley ejects Yellowcard’s Yellowcard album, places it on the dashboard, and puts in Aziraphale’s CD. It crackles and the voice of an American man comes on.

“Welcome, Aziraphale,” he says. “I’m glad to have you.”

“Thank you for seeing me Gabriel.”

“Alright, so let’s begin,” says Gabriel. “How did you two first meet?”

“I met Crowley at a birthday for a friend’s son named Adam. He was sitting alone, and I decided to go talk to him to give him some company. I thought he looked so alone.”

There’s a crinkle of some paper.

“Good, keep going.”

“When I approached him, I asked if I could sit next to him,” says Azirapahle. “I wasn’t prepared for how he looked. Long beautiful red hair, a sharp face, and gorgeous amber eyes.”

Aziraphale ejects the CD and looks at Crowley with fear and confusion.

“What the hell is this?”

“I-I don’t know!”

“We’ve never met though, what the hell.”

“I’m just as shocked as you are,” says Crowley. “I’ve never met you before in my life and yet this is implying that we somehow knew each other.”

“Just…I have to go.” Grabbing the CD and the other one, Aziraphale exits the Bentley and goes back into his shop. Crowley doesn’t go after him. He slumps in his seat and tries to process what just happened. Did he and Aziraphale somehow know each other already? He looks down at his own CDs.

* * *

“So, he accused you of having sex with others?”

“He did yes,” says Crowley. “And I was an idiot and said that I did sleep with other people. I didn’t know what I was thinking. He got so upset at me and ran out.”

“Did you go after him?”

“I did. And we fought for a bit,” explains Crowley. “The last thing he said to me was that I go too fast for him.”

Crowley turns off the CD and stares at it in silence. Aziraphale hovers near him. He came over to apologize and ask if Crowley had listened to his tape yet. That’s how they ended up on Crowley’s bed with his laptop open, listening to his tape.

“I…I don’t know what to say,” he says. “This is all…so weird.”

“It is, yes. We dated each other and because we were both having issues, we forgot each other.”

“Yeah,” says Crowley. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have done that. Or least it was impulse on my part to do it to myself.”

“It was impulse on my part as well,” Aziraphale says. “I was so upset at you that I wanted to forget everything instead of working things out. ”

“Well to be honest, it was all deserved. I wasn’t a very good boyfriend to you.”

“My past memory self seems to disagree with that. He loved you a lot.”

Pulling his knees to his chest, Crowley looks at Aziraphale with a questioning stare that he probably can’t see through his sunglasses.

“And it seems my past self did too,” says Crowley.

“Yeah…what do you suggest we do, Crowley?”

“I…I don’t know,” he says. “We could go our separate ways and forget this ever happened, or…” Crowley trails off.

“Or?”

“We can start all over if you want.”

That earns Crowley a look of shock, but it soon morphs into curiosity. Aziraphale places a hand on his chin and thinks. This lasts for a few seconds maybe, and then he gets up and walks over to Crowley . He places his hands on his sunglasses. Crowley nods in silent confirmation and his sunglasses come off. 

“Yes, we can try again.”

* * *

Crowley lays in the snow with Aziraphale next to him. They came out here as soon as it started to snow hard. A bit dumb of them to do, but neither of them cares about the cold. A warm hand is wrapped around Crowley’s.

“Say, Crowley?”

“Hm?”

“Is there anything in life that you want?”

Turning to face Aziraphale, Crowley stares into heavenly blue eyes. He leans forward and places a kiss onto Aziraphale’s lips.

“You.”


End file.
